Modeling Rates of Change and Aggregations in Runtime Goal Models

Achieving real-time agility and adaptation with respect to changing requirements in existing IT infrastructure can pose a complex challenge. We explore a goal-oriented approach to managing this complexity. We argue that a goal-oriented perspective can form an effective basis for devising and deploying responses to changed requirements in real-time. We offer an extended vocabulary of goal types, specifically by presenting two novel conceptions: differential goals and integral goals, which we formalize in both linear-time and branching-time settings. We then illustrate the working of the approach by presenting a detailed scenario of adaptation in a Kubernetes setting, in the face of a DDoS attack.